About a year ago there was a lot of excitement about the Hook queue, a unique queue for people to anonymously submit up to 1000 words of their manuscript, and receive very short and quick anonymous feedback. The idea is that readers read though the manuscript until they lose interest, much like an overworked editor trying to get through the slush pile mountain. Readers mark the spots where they quit, and preferably make some comments to the writer, reporting their thoughts on the manuscript and why they stopped reading where they did.

Most people were happy with this new queue, which only ran once, but the consensus was that there were some tweaks required. Tweaking is now completed. Behold: Here is the new and improved Hook queue. It will run for three days the first weekend of every month.

The rules are pretty much the same as last time around but some features have been added:

* The system will not allow you to post longer pieces than 1000 words
* You can add author's notes to your stories
* You can only submit one story to the Hook queue at a time. Once the first weekend of the month is over with you can submit your next story for the the next month's weekend.
* It costs 3 credits to submit a story to the Hook queue which you will get back if you crit ten or more hook stories
* The genre of the story you're critting is now prominently displayed on the crit page
* Everything is anonymous
* The Hook does not affect your statistics in any way
* There is a new forced Hook crit mode which allows you to click on the paragraph where you stopped reading and add a comment there. The crit also records the time spent before clicking that paragraph.
* Authors can view these new Hook crits in a special page which shows them a nice birds eye view of where people stopped reading.

Think of this first weekend as a trial-run since there is a lot of new tech here and it's bounds to have a few problems and inconsistencies. Please report issues as you find them. This is the current discussion thread.

A quick recap of the rules:

Submission guidelines
* You should submit the start of your story and it should be no more than 1000 words long.
* Only one submission per person is accepted at a time. You can submit your next piece into the next hook crit cycle once the current one completes.
* Submitting a story costs 3 credits but those 3 credits are refunded if you crit 10 other pieces in this queue in the same period.
* Story submission is completely anonymous. No one knows who posted which story.
* Story submission into this queue does not affect your statistics.
* You are welcome to fill out author's notes.

Critique guidelines
* There is a special "Hook" crit mode for stories. You click on the paragraph where you stopped reading and fill out the form telling the author a little bit about why you quit where you did.
* Remember, this isn't a full crit; a paragraph or two is usually enough.
* If you read to the end there is a special link for that for you to click on as well.
* The time which it took you to read the story until you click that paragraph is saved with the crit, giving the author an indication of how much time people spent on the story.
* You gain no credits for critting stories in The Hook but if you have a story up as well you can get those credits refunded.
* Crits in this queue should not affect your CC statistics.